Reviewed: Micromax Doodle 2

A large-screen smartphone experience that ticks the boxes without breaking the bank

Micromax launched the Canvas 4 not too long ago, and has just raised the stakes with the Doodle 2 – a phablet that rocks a massive 5.7-inch screen. Okay, it may not be as humungous as the Sony Xperia Z Ultra but it’s still large enough to hide half your face when you put it to your ears; dimensions that place it firmly in the middle of the phablet spectrum. It wouldn’t be called ‘Doodle 2’ without a stylus in tow – and we’re glad to report that one is included in the kit. Let’s find out what it has besides the large screen and a stylus appendage.

Seeing…
The Doodle 2 is possibly the first Canvas smartphone that’s sealed – there’s no access to the battery. The front may stick to the bog-standard smartphone design, but the rear is clad in silver and fashioned out of aluminum – the large portion in the middle anyway. The top and bottom portions are faux metal, and the top flap can be removed to gain access to the pair of SIM slots inside. It does feel solid and reassuringly hefty when held in the hand. The innards of the phone aren’t too different when compared to the Canvas 4 – there’s a quad-core 1.2GHz MediaTek processor, a gig of RAM, and 16GB of storage. The shooting arsenal is made up of a 12-megapixel camera at the rear, and a 5-megapixel fixed focus snapper at front. Note that there’s no way to expand the storage (almost 13GB out of which is user accessible) unless you use the USB On-the-Go feature. Other connectivity options include the usual Wi-Fi, A-GPS and Wi-Fi Direct.

Exploring…
The device runs a near-stock version of Android 4.2.1, suitably tweaked to handle the dual-SIM functionality. It comes with same slew of software tricks that we saw on the Canvas 4 – complete with a pop-up browser, ‘Video Pinning’, and ‘pause video on looking away’. You can also blow kisses on the screen to unlock. We wouldn’t kid about such stuff. Micromax has also preloaded the device with quite a few apps, notable amongst which are Evernote and Skitch. There’s an intriguing app called M! Doodle, which complements the bundled stylus to let you create sketches and doodles and what not, and share them using the built in chat functionality.

Using…
Zippy from the get-go, yet not trailblazing in terms of performance, the Doodle 2 handles most tasks thrown at it reasonably well. The 12-meg shooter is loaded with features, and while it’s up to the task in daylight, it runs out of stamina by nightfall and churns out noisy pics. The same can be said for the 2,600 mAh battery (the stamina we mean), but it’s a good thing in this case. And if you’re frugal in app usage, you could eke out even more juice from it.

Accept it (or not)
Micromax generously throws in an innovative flip cover in the box, and a double-tipped stylus is also included. While the Doodle 2 is a perfectly solid option if you’re looking for a large-screened device, perhaps our biggest gripe is that it sticks to the same core specs we’ve seen in the Canvas 4 and the Canvas HD. Oh, and there’s no place to stow away that stylus, either in the handset or in the flip cover. If you can deal with these, go right ahead and doodle.

What we liked: Reasonable performance and camera, large screen, bundled flip coverWhat we didn’t: No upgrade in core specs as compared to Micromax’s previous products, no silo for storing bundled stylusKiller app: M! DoodlePrice: Rs 19,990